


X is for Explore, Explanation, Excitement, and Xenophilia

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alphabet Soup Challenge, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth is a complicated place.  Teal'c has friends to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	X is for Explore, Explanation, Excitement, and Xenophilia

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2014 On-World Alphabet Soup Genfic Challenge
> 
> Written on the fly, and it turns out not to be needed because yay [](http://thothmes.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://thothmes.dreamwidth.org/)**thothmes** to the rescue, but here it is anyway. Unbeta'd unmediated unwept unhonored and unsung. 1300 words.
> 
> You wouldn't believe how many tabs I had to open for this.
> 
> PS: Was formerly "C"

The first time Teal’c got to see the world outside the Mountain they were chasing a shapechanging alien bomb. Teal’c hadn’t been on Earth more than a few weeks then. He got his information about his new alien home from CNN, and he thought Earth was a pretty scary place.

Jack had offered to show him around, but it was a promise he found surprisingly hard to keep. The second time Teal’c left the Mountain it was to help him and Carter pack up Daniel’s apartment, since they thought Daniel was dead. He also got to come to Daniel’s wake, which Jack supposes doesn’t really count as either a social occasion, or as seeing Earth. (Fortunately Daniel wasn’t dead. That was also when Jack discovered Monty Python didn’t translate across cultures.)

The third time Teal’c got to go out also involved exploding aliens. Only this one didn’t explode after all, and she got to stay. (They’d just found out Teal’c had a boy about Cassie’s age a few weeks before, and that’s an associational road Jack isn’t going to go down, thanks so much.) He has to admit that a visit to a mothballed Titan missile silo was probably not what Teal’c had in mind when he asked to be shown Earth (missile silos seem to be a recurring motif in the life of one Colonel Jack O’Neill, but let that pass), though.

It wasn’t that Teal’c never got outside. They were outside every time they stepped through the Stargate. (It was usually raining.) But it also wasn’t Earth. He knew Teal’c wanted to see Earth. He wanted to understand it. (Good luck there, big guy.) The paperwork seemed to go on forever, though. Teal’c didn’t officially exist, and in the eyes of Washington, the easiest way to deal with little problems like that was to ignore them. (And Teal’c.)

He got to see plenty of the Springs on his next outing, since he was hiding from the NID while a big bug turned him into a bunch of little bugs (that would grow up to be big bugs and then bye-bye Earth). But it was after that (Carter helped him put the boot in; she was still pissed with little Timmy Harlowe of the flexible morals) that they finally got permission to take Teal’c on an honest-to-God outing.

You’d probably think camping wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice. They do plenty of that at work. But Teal’c’s interested in how people who were born free choose to spend their time, Jack likes camping, Daniel said the contrast between camping for fun and camping because they had to would probably interest Teal’c, and Carter announced she made a mean s’more. General Hammond liked the idea. (General Hammond probably thought they couldn’t get into much trouble in The Garden of the Gods.)

The gear fills the whole back of the truck, so Carter follows them on her bike. They’ll stay here overnight, go back to the house to unload (and shower), and then down to that Italian place Daniel likes for Sunday dinner. A nice low-key introduction to the pleasures of Earth. (Jack wonders what the folks back home get up to for fun, but having visited scenic Chulak a couple of times now, he doesn’t wonder very hard.)

It’s car camping, but they find a nice spot. Trees just don’t smell the same anywhere else. Carter’s efficient, clearing level ground, arranging all the tools. She’s brought a bright blue bubble tent; he’s brought his old red Coleman (sleeps four, but not if one of them’s Teal’c and they’re going to be storing a lot of gear inside). The tents go up quickly: Carter’s talking about the engineering aspects of tent construction; Daniel’s contributing the history of tents (which go all the way back to Sunday School; no surprises there). Jack’s pulled out a lawn chair to...supervise.

He’s always liked the outdoors. His grandfather first introduced him to it. The first summer he spent outside of Chicago was a revelation. Sara liked it too: whenever he was home, they’d load up the truck of the moment and take off for whatever wilderness was closest. Even while she was pregnant. Even with the baby. (He doesn’t think of Charlie if he can help it, but some parts—the good parts—of his life are so intertwined with those eight brief years he had with him that forgetting Charlie would be like lobotomizing himself. That’s why the pictures are still on his living room wall.)

Teal’c looks a little wacky in civilian clothes. Like they’re some kind of costume he isn’t really sure about. He does what Carter tells him, and the tents look like they’ll stand. Jack shifts gears from ‘supervisory’ to ‘managerial’ to get the rest of the truck unloaded. And the gear stowed. They brought wood with them; he builds the fire in the firepit himself. Some things you have to leave to the experts.

Teal’c is asking Daniel if this is a customary form of recreation among the Tau’ri. Daniel is tripping over his own tongue, trying to be fair and accurate and list all the possibilities. (As usual, the explanation doesn’t go well.) Jack thinks Daniel’s looking at the trees instead of the forest: Teal’c isn’t asking if this is what normal people do as much as he’s asking if the four of them are doing it the way normal people do it.

Yeah, pretty much.

Everything’s set up by mid-afternoon. Jack runs the truck down to the parking area and walks back; by then, Daniel’s talked Carter into hiking up to look at some local petroglyphs. Jack adjusts his chair so it’s facing the firepit and the sun’s at his back, makes sure the cooler is close to hand, sits down, and cracks a beer.

Teal’c sits down beside him. Jack hands him a bottle of juice.

“I would not have expected recreation on your world to be so...quiet...O’Neill,” Teal’c finally says.

“Wait ’till you see a hockey game,” Jack answers. He knows Teal’c’s probably seen them on ESPN. The real thing’s better.

They sit in silence for a while, which is fine. Jack likes silence, and likes having nothing to do, and likes being places where the possibility someone is going to shoot at him is vanishingly small. And Teal’c isn’t a chatterbox. That’s one of the things Jack likes about him.

“It is odd,” Teal’c says at last, “to be presented with so many choices.”

And that’s something that might actually call for him to say something profound and Colonel-ish, but he hears Carter and Daniel coming back, arguing about something, and he lets the moment go.

#

Dinner is hot dogs, cooked over the fire. (They’ll have to fire up the camp stove to cook breakfast, but they don’t really need it now.) His grandfather’s battered old percolator nestles in the coals so the caffeine-addicts can have their coffee; Jack sticks to beer. After they’ve roasted hot dogs (and every other dinner-related thing that can conceivably go on the end of a roasting fork) it’s time for dessert.

Carter talks about making s’mores when she was in the Girl Scouts. Daniel disentangles Teal’c from the idea that the Tau’ri have a caste of child warriors. Jack shows Teal’c how you put them together. Teal’c gets the first one by default. They’re all watching as he shoves the first square into his mouth (whole). Waiting for the review.

“I believe this is the taste of freedom,” Teal’c pronounces gravely.

And nobody laughs.

#


End file.
